Cardiopulmonary exercise testing in preoperative risk assessment and patient management

Editor —The article by Swart and colleagues1 aroused our interest. In 1999 our group published a paper in which we used cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPX) to stratify surgical risk in 548 consecutive patients>60  years of age (or younger with known cardiopulmonary disease).2 We found that, to quote, ‘In elderly patients undergoing major intra-abdominal surgery, the AT (anaerobic threshold), as determined by CPX testing, is an excellent predictor of mortality from cardiopulmonary causes in the postoperative period. Preoperative screening using CPX testing allowed the identification of high-ris k patients and the appropriate selection of perioperative management’.
Source: British Journal of Anaesthesia - Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: research